


Unreasonable Doubt

by EchoInTheSilence



Series: Not Just Another Case [6]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-09-21 14:03:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9552143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoInTheSilence/pseuds/EchoInTheSilence
Summary: She's never told anyone, but he's the reason she left Atlanta. The problem is, people aren't as easy to get away from as places. And now her past has come back to torment her.





	1. Trust and Betrayal

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This story is on an AU track.
> 
> In regards to canon, there are a couple of key changes to note. I began working on the idea for this story even before Season 15 aired, so the whole concept of "Forgiving Rollins" doesn't fit into this timeline. That's the only episode that's completely out of this arc, but for purposes of these stories, the whole Amaro beating up the cameraman plot never happened (I just really didn't care for it as a story). Also, in this series, Lieutenant Murphy stays in command through the end of Season 16, because I like keeping Olivia in the field for now, and Carisi is not a character for the moment.

_Atlanta, Georgia, April 2011_

"Damn!" Amanda Rollins turned the key in the ignition again, and once again, while the engine seemed to turn on, nothing happened that helped her so much as get out of the parking spot, let alone actually accomplish her goal of driving home. She stepped out of the driver's seat and dug her phone out of her pocket to call a cab. She'd worry about the tow truck in the morning.

"Car trouble?"

She jumped a mile and felt abashed even as she did so, recognizing the voice. "Sergeant Blaine!"

The veteran Georgia police officer smiled. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."

"No, no, that's okay."

"It's not crazy or anything for a woman like you to be worried about the White Knight." And just like that, he'd cut to the heart of her fears.

The White Knight. A particularly vicious rapist, and one who was smart enough not to leave a whole lot of clues behind. He tampered with women's cars and then swooped in to offer them help. He'd be apparently looking at the car, trying to fix the problem, and then he'd suddenly be holding a gun on the woman. He'd force her into his car, drive her to a deserted area, and rape her. And what scared Amanda was that she fit his profile. Young women in careers that had traditionally been dominated by men, low on the totem pole for the moment but on their way up. She'd had to fight the urge to pull her gun from its holster and hold it ready ever since she realized her car wasn't starting.

"The guy we're looking for comes into the police station parking garage and tampers with my car? It may not be out-and-out crazy, but even I know it sounds paranoid when I say it out loud."

"Don't worry about it," he replied kindly. "Better safe than sorry, right? You know, if it is this guy, you don't want to be sitting around here. How about I give you a lift home and you can call a tow truck from there about your car?"

"Really? Thank you so much."

"Oh, it's no problem at all. I'm parked just over here."

She saw the lights flash on his car as he unlocked it with the control on his keys. She climbed into the front seat as he got in and started the engine.

"You look tired," he commented.

"I am," she admitted. "But unless you want to be driving all over the city at random, I think I'd better stay awake."

He laughed. "I think I can do better than that." He reached into the center compartment and pulled out a portable GPS. "Why don't you just type your address in here? Then if you fall asleep, no big deal."

She smiled even wider now. "Thank you." She quickly punched in her address, unable to believe that a veteran member of the police force was going so far out of his way to be nice to a rookie. She was asleep before the car left the garage.

xxxxxxxxx

Something hit her in the arm, and she was jerked awake. In the next moment, she realized her left hand was cuffed to the emergency brake. She reached for her gun, only to realize her holster was empty.

The car was stopped, and she could see Blaine shutting it off. "This isn't funny."

"Really?" he drawled. "I think it is. You think you can be just like one of us, but all that has to happen is a little car breakdown and you come running to a man to save you. No wonder the White Knight has such an easy time of it. Except with you, it was even easier than he has it. I didn't have to force you to do anything, you did it all on your own."

Her heart was racing. She forced herself to speak calmly, evenly. "Okay. Okay, you've made your point. I was acting like an idiot. Now please, just let me go. I'll find my own way home, I won't ask for your help anymore." She shoved aside the shame she felt at denigrating herself. _You're a cop, you lie to people all the time to get a result. This is no different. You're just telling him what he wants to hear._

Blaine only smirked. "It's not that easy, sweetheart. See, there's a lesson to be learned here, and I don't think you've learned it. Whatever you've deluded yourself into believing, I've got the power here now, and that means I can do what I want with you." He stepped out of the car and walked around, opening the passenger's door and reaching across Amanda to unlock the cuff from the car. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out, twisting her arm behind her back so she couldn't fight him without seriously hurting herself. He walked her to a few feet and then shoved her to the ground next to a handicapped parking sign, cuffing her hand to the metal pole. He grabbed a handful of her hair and tipped her head back to face him. "The rules are simple. If you behave yourself, you don't have to get hurt. But if you disobey me, I have to punish you. Understand?"

"Y-yes, sir," she stammered out.

"Good. That's good." Then he started to unbutton her shirt.

_No,_ she thought silently, but fear of what he would do kept the word from slipping through her lips. She closed her eyes, but almost immediately he slapped her across the face.

"I want to see your eyes," he hissed. "Don't you dare look away from me. That slap was nothing compared to what will happen if you defy me again."

xxxxxxxxx

Amanda limped out of the cab as it dropped her off in her driveway, her entire body shaking uncontrollably. She should have just called the cab in the first place, she thought bitterly. Instead she'd gotten in a car with a man she barely knew, a man she had no real reason to trust, a man who'd taken advantage of her trust by driving her to a deserted park and raping her, copycatting the MO of a man his department was hunting for. He'd uncuffed her and left her lying on the ground, throwing her gun out the window just before starting the car so she'd have no chance to use it against him. She'd called a cab as soon as she'd been able to muster the courage to get up and get her clothes back on.

She stumbled through her front door, slamming it shut behind her and locking the deadbolt. Even then she didn't feel safe. _How could this happen?_

Her cop's mind went immediately to the correct procedure in this case. _Don't shower, keep the same clothes, go to the hospital, get a rape kit done, file a report._ But even as she thought this she was shaking her head, knowing that all that would be pointless trauma. Blaine was no idiot, he'd used a condom. It would be his word against hers, and who was going to believe her?

She wanted the clothes off. The touch of the fabric on her skin was almost painful. She sprinted into her bathroom, locking that door as well before she practically tore them off. It didn't matter; she'd never wear them again. She wanted to burn them. And then she did the one thing she'd always been taught she should never do, the one thing she wanted to do most in that moment. She stepped into the tub and turned the shower on. She began to sob as the hot water pelted her body. She'd never felt so alone and helpless and terrified in her life.


	2. Can't Be Left Behind

Olivia had the file open on her desk. "Allison Mayfield, twenty-five year old judge's clerk, leaves work and as she's getting into her car sees she has a flat tire. A man walks up to her offering to help, and while she's bent over her trunk clearing things out so she can get out the spare, he puts a gun to the back of her head and forces her into his car. He drives her to an abandoned parking lot, rapes her, and drives away."

Amanda had been pouring a cup of coffee, but when she heard the unit Sergeant describing the crime, she had to set the coffeepot down quickly before she dropped it. "The White Knight."

"What?" Nick gave her a confused look.

"Just before I left Atlanta, we were trying to catch a serial rapist who matches this MO. He'd tamper with a woman's car in some way and then show up offering help. They'd be trying to fix the problem and suddenly he'd have a gun on her. It's the same right down to driving her to an abandoned location, and Allison fits the victim profile. All of the Atlanta victims were young women in low-level positions in careers that were traditionally considered men's careers. The press nicknamed him the White Knight because of the whole swooping in to help thing."

Olivia leaned forward intently. "How many victims?"

"Four when I left, but as far as I know they never caught him. Could easily be more than twice that many now."

Olivia gathered up the file quickly. "I'll brief Murphy, have him call Atlanta for the file. If this is the same guy, we need all the intelligence we can get."

She sat down at her desk, aware Fin was watching her closely. "What is it?"

"Are you okay?"

She swallowed hard, trying to compose herself. Thinking about the White Knight had brought back the memories of her own rape at the hands of Sergeant Blaine. She had never told anyone what had happened to her that night. A few weeks after that, a Deputy Chief had gotten drunk and groped her during a retirement party, and had only been stopped from actually tearing her dress off when her captain had walked in and intervened. It had been terrifying, especially considering she was still reeling from being raped, but it had also been the excuse she needed. The next day she'd gone to the same captain and told him she could no longer work in that department and asked him to help find her a transfer. He'd been so helpful she'd almost felt guilty lying to him, but she couldn't tell him the truth. The lie had gotten her out of Atlanta.

For a moment she almost considered telling Fin about Blaine, but she couldn't. Not after keeping silent for so long. So she did what she'd been doing since the rape. She lied. "I just hate the ones that got away, you know? This guy was a nasty piece of work and every lead was a dead end."

"He hasn't gotten away from us yet," Fin countered. "I'm not conceding defeat before we've started. We'll get him."

xxxxxxxxx

When Amanda walked into the squad room, she thought at first that she was trapped in one of her nightmares.

She had this nightmare every so often, rooted, she guessed, in the weeks between her assault and her transfer when she'd been forced to work in the same office as Blaine. She'd walk into SVU and _he_ would be there, sitting with her colleagues. But a quick, hard bite to her lower lip confirmed what she didn't want to believe. This was no nightmare; this was real.

Fin turned and noticed her. "Hey, Rollins. You two have met, right?"

Blaine turned now too, and his eyes sized her up. She fought the instinct to shiver. "Yeah, we've met."

"I called for a file, Atlanta PD sent us an officer," Murphy explained, unaware of the young detective's discomfort. "This guy's attacked nineteen women in Atlanta since 2011, and they haven't been able to make any headway on the case. Five of the victims were seriously injured. And as soon as the Chief of Detectives and the Commissioner got wind of this, they've insisted we make it a priority before someone gets hurt here."

"Allison Mayfield barely had a bruise on her," Amaro pointed out. "We sure it's the same guy?"

"The other fourteen victims weren't hurt either," Blaine replied. "At first, we thought it might be a copycat, but there were details that we didn't release that showed up in those cases too. Then we figured out the pattern. The five who were hurt are the only ones who fought him; the others complied as soon as the gun came out. It's the same guy."

"DA's office is sending one of their investigators too," Murphy added. "Everyone's afraid of what happens if we don't get this guy."

"Great," Amaro grumbled. "The last thing we need is some paper-pusher looking over our shoulders while we work."

"I'm insulted," said a voice from the doorway.

Blaine just looked confused, and Murphy looked worried that they'd ticked off this guy before he'd even sat down, but the mood of the rest of the team lightened considerably in a matter of seconds as they turned to face the newcomer, who was grinning.

Olivia stood up and ran over to hug the older man. "John!"

"DA's office must've screwed up, they actually sent us someone useful," added Nick, who was right behind her. He hesitated for a moment, then hugged the unit's former Sergeant too.

"Useful my ass," Fin groused mock-seriously. "Instead of a paper-pusher, they sent us a paranoid nutcase." But he quickly couldn't hold back his own smile as he slapped the older man on the back. "How've you been, man?"

"I take it there's some history here," Murphy said, visibly relaxing when he realized there were no hard feelings among the group.

"John Munch, Lieutenant Declan Murphy." Olivia finally seemed to realize that the unit commander was out of the loop. "John used to have my job."

"In other words, I'm used to this kind of thing," he said, shaking the other man's hand. "You don't have to babysit me."

Rollins didn't join in the momentary joy. She _was_ happy to see Munch; she'd missed him just as the others had. She'd never known anyone like him, and his absence was keenly felt. But her terror over seeing Blaine was more than enough to cancel that out. She felt like she was going to be sick.

xxxxxxxxx

Amanda closed the door of her apartment, locking it firmly. She was aware, in some distant part of her mind, that she was repeating the same actions she'd taken on the night she'd been raped, but she felt helpless to stop it. She just wanted to feel safe. Unfortunately, the apartment didn't do it for her either. Everything in it was less than two years old, all bought after her sister had cleaned her out.

_Tell the team_. But she couldn't. Maybe a year ago, but not now. The looks in all of their eyes after her undercover operation with Murphy were so clear in her memory that she might as well be still standing there in that moment. She'd lost all of their trust because she hadn't been able to control her stupid urge to gamble. If Murphy _hadn't_ turned out to be an undercover officer, she would have lost even more. She was alone, and she deserved to be alone.

xxxxxxxxx

"Some people never learn, do they?"

Amanda's body stiffened at the hated voice, and she turned to face the man. "W-what?" The rational part of her brain was telling her not to engage him, but her instincts were still stuck in that awful night and the feelings that had dictated that experience. _If I oppose him, if I resist him in any way, he'll hurt me._

"I saw you with that detective earlier. What's his name, Amaro? You were flirting, anyone could see that."

Her rational center finally managed to interject a tiny bit of sense into the interaction. _He doesn't really know about you and Nick. The people you work with every day still haven't figured out you're together. This is just about his attitude, he doesn't realize how right he is. Don't give him the satisfaction._

Blaine kept talking, not waiting for a response. "You're still here, carrying that badge, and yet you're throwing yourself at that man. You'll never be like a man; you should stop trying."

He walked away before she could say anything, and she leaned against the wall until the ground felt solid under her feet again. Her relationship with the other detective was one of the few positive things that existed in her life, and now Blaine had cast his shadow over even that.

xxxxxxxxx

"How are you holding up?"

Amanda looked over her shoulder at Nick. "I'm not the one who spent the last two hours interviewing a traumatized victim."

He gave her a gentle smile. "But you've been dealing with this case the longest - well, you and Blaine, anyway." She had to resist the urge to flinch at _his_ name. "We all know what it's like when there's that one guy you just can't seem to get."

"It's not as bad as it could be. I wasn't that close to the case; I barely touched it, really. It wasn't _my_ case, I only got involved when they started pulling in additional officers."

Amaro nodded in understanding. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Blaine's been on it from Day One, hasn't he?"

Again, she had to force herself not to react. _Don't say his name!_ she screamed internally, but aloud, she just carried on the conversation. "Yeah, I think so."

"It was strange, though. Liv offered to let him sit in on the interview. He didn't want to."

_Of course not. He wouldn't want anyone to realize he sympathizes with their attacker._ "I don't think he did the interviews in Atlanta either."

"Well, I guess he's not really like an SVU detective. He's not used to dealing with live victims."

She hoped he couldn't see that she was trembling now, just remembering how Blaine hovered over her, constantly poking at a barely-healed wound. _He doesn't seem to mind dealing with me._

Apparently, he didn't. "You want to get some dinner?"

She did. She wanted to be able to spend some time alone with him. She felt safe with him. But the memory of her conversation earlier in the day hung in the back of her mind. "I'm not sure we should."

"Amanda." He finally seemed to realize something was off. "Are you okay?"

_No._ "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just - Blaine said something that made me think he thinks something's going on between us."

For a fleeting moment, she almost hoped he'd reject her explanation, push her harder. But instead, he nodded. "Oh, okay. Well, that's no big deal. We're not really doing anything wrong. We're not partners. We were going to have to disclose at some point anyway." He leaned forward and gently kissed her cheek. "Come on, I want to spend a little time with you away from here. Please?"

"Okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't leave one of my favorite SVU characters out of this story, even if he's not on the team anymore! Besides, he's important later in the story.
> 
> This chapter references the SVU episode Gambler's Fallacy. Rollins and Amaro's relationship gets a minor mention in the episode Reasonable Doubt (the similarity between the title of that episode and the title of this story is total coincidence). It's more of a serious thing in this story than in canon, however.
> 
> The thing about the deputy chief groping her is my attempt to reconcile this with the comment that Rollins' captain makes in Strange Beauty. I developed most of this story without having seen that episode, so I needed a way to make it make sense. It actually turned out pretty well for the plot I think, as you may see in later chapters.
> 
> Please leave comments if you're enjoying this, I'd love to know what you think.


	3. Goes Nowhere, 'Cept Around and Around

"Looks like you've had a long night," Rollins commented by way of a greeting. She was a good twenty minutes early for her shift, but Nick and Olivia looked like they'd been there for hours.

Nick's face was taut. "Our guy hit another victim last night. Laura Issac, twenty-five, low-level supervisor in a marketing firm. Same profile, same MO."

"She managed to give us a partial plate off the car in addition to a manufacturer," Olivia added, "four out of six, but I don't know how much help that'll be. In four of the Atlanta cases, they were able to track down a probable match for the car, and three of them were stolen and one was rented with a bogus ID, and Laura's description of the car doesn't match the one Allison gave of the car he was using to abduct her. I've got a uni running down every car matching the description and the partial plate that's registered to a rental company or that's been reported stolen; here's hoping we get lucky and there's some trace evidence left if we do find it."

"That's awfully close together," Fin remarked, coming in just behind his partner. "Is he escalating?"

"There wasn't a clear pattern in the time between cases," Nick replied, looking at the Atlanta file to confirm what he was saying. "Atlanta guessed he seeks out the victims, stalks them long enough to know their routine, and then waits to catch them alone before tampering with the car. There's no specific timeline."

"Where's Blaine?" Fin queried.

_Not here, thank God_ , Amanda thought. She hadn't seen him yet that morning and she was unbelievably grateful for that respite, tiny though it was.

Olivia shrugged. "I called him when the call came in, but he said he thought we could handle it and he'd be in at the regular time. I get not wanting to step on our toes but he's taking it to the opposite extreme. I know you said he didn't usually do interviews, but was he this hands-off in Atlanta?"

"What?" It took Rollins a second to realize the question was directed at her. "Uh, yeah, kind of. I mean, he had to do more of the grunt work, but I don't think I ever saw him with a victim."

"Strange way to handle a case," Fin remarked.

"Maybe he's just not comfortable with victims," Nick suggested. "SVU takes a special kind of detective, and he's not SVU, just an officer who happened to be handed a serial rape case."

"Fair enough," Olivia conceded.

xxxxxxxxx

"Sure, that's one of ours," the rental agent replied.

"Can you tell me if it was on your lot last night between 9PM and midnight?" Olivia asked. They'd decided to run down the five matching rental cars first before trying to deal with the stolen ones, and she and Munch had gone out to this lot to check on this particular car.

"Sure can." He pressed a few buttons. "No, sorry. It was taken out the day before yesterday and returned early this morning."

"Is it here now?" she asked eagerly. _Could we have caught a break, finally?_

"Yes, but I can't let you have it, it hasn't been cleaned yet."

"You're taking it out of service," Olivia told him authoritatively. "No one is to touch that car until our own technicians get here. That car is now a crime scene."

"I think I'd better get my supervisor."

"Fine, do that, but make damn sure your guys don't touch that car in the meantime, and we need to speak to anyone who might have already touched it."

The supervisor was on the floor quickly. "You think a crime was committed using one of our cars?"

"It's looking likely. Your employee told you what we expect?"

"I may be able to go a step further," he replied. "Last year, we had an issue with some of our cars not being returned in a timely fashion or at all, so we installed GPS trackers. We save the data for forty-eight hours."

"Big Brother is alive and well," Munch commented under his breath, but loud enough for the other three to hear.

"Shut up, John," Olivia chided with a great deal of affection. "At least that'll tell us for sure if we're on the right track."

xxxxxxxxx

"I thought for sure we'd caught a break when the car hadn't been cleaned," Olivia groaned, "but CSU went over it for three hours, and all the evidence we found matched the exclusionaries from the rental lot staff. The only thing we know for sure is that this is the right car."

"This guy's better than we thought," Blaine commented. "In all the other cases, the rental cars had been cleaned and the stolen cars had been torched. We always thought that if we could just get one closer to the time of the crime, we might be able to break the case. But it looks like he cleaned up after himself first, just in case."

"I'm not giving up yet," Olivia said firmly, in the voice she always reserved for the cases that really got to her. "We'll get him."

"Taking this one personally?" Blaine inquired.

"Damn right I am. My boyfriend has a daughter that fits this profile."

_Don't tell him that!_ Amanda wanted to scream. _What if he decides she needs a lesson like he thought I did?_ She hadn't been worried for Olivia because Olivia was older and higher up the chain of command than she was or than any of the White Knight's victims.

She forced herself to calm down. _The girl's in Pennsylvania, how's he even going to find her?_ Elliot Stabler's other two daughters were still in school, so Amanda knew she had to mean Maureen. _You're letting him get to you._

xxxxxxxxx

A ring on the buzzer woke Amanda from a sound sleep. She checked her phone to make sure she hadn't slept through a call. She hadn't.

_So someone's coming to my apartment without calling first. Neighbor that needs to be buzzed in?_ She pressed the button to open the communication line.

" _Hello, Amanda_."

Her heart almost stopped. _No._ "What - do we have another lead on the case?"

" _No. I just wanted to stop by and say hello._ "

"I'm not letting you in." It took every bit of strength she had to get that defiant statement out, and even so her voice shook.

" _Fine. Goodnight, Amanda._ "

She collapsed to the floor, her legs no longer having the strength to hold her up. She was shaking, too tired and worked up to even cry.

_I can't do this anymore._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short, I know, but I needed everything in this chapter to set up the next one.
> 
> The chapter title is from the Shawn Mullins song "Never Gonna Get Out of This Town". Shawn is one of my favorite artists and with him being an Atlanta man himself it seemed fitting to use it here. It applies both to the investigation and Rollins' personal situation.


	4. Can't Go On Like This

John Munch was suspicious.

Now this, in and of itself, was not an unusual occurrence. Any of the SVU detectives would attest that he was usually suspicious of something. But that something was usually related to the government. He wouldn't deny that he was what most people would call a conspiracy theorist, but as he always reminded them, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're not right.

But this was different. John Munch was suspicious of Sergeant Blaine.

Ever since he'd met the man a week earlier, he'd gotten a sense from him that something was off in a way he just couldn't quite put his finger on. The longer he worked with the man, the more strange little things he came across. Not feeling comfortable with victims was one thing, but Blaine seemed to go out of his way to avoid them, ducking out of the room every time a victim was coming in for an interview.

"No one's going to force you into the interview room," Olivia had told the man a little exasperatedly, but he'd only shaken his head without answering and continued the strange behavior.

Not to mention, his organizational skills left a lot to be desired. He'd only been around a few weeks, but the degree of disarray on the desk he was using was worse than what most detectives developed over the course of years. John had been looking for the same file for twenty minutes and didn't seem to be any closer to finding it. The desk was a pile of papers, work-related and otherwise. He finally saw something that looked like the file he needed, only to groan in near-despair when he realized that wasn't it at all and all he'd done was knock a bunch of papers to the floor when he'd pulled it out. With a sigh, he began gathering them up, dropping them back onto the desk. But one inexplicably caught his eye. At first he couldn't figure out why. It was just a car rental receipt -

No, it was a receipt for the _return_ of a rental car. 4AM the day after Laura Issac was attacked, to the same rental lot as the car that was used in the abduction.

Abandoning his search for the file, he haphazardly shoved the rest of the papers onto Blaine's desk, hoping the Atlanta Sergeant wasn't one of those people who had an order to what looked like a mess to everyone else. He didn't want the man to realize anyone had been looking through the papers on his desk. He ran over to Olivia's desk instead, going through her much better organized files until he found a copy of the invoice for the rental car. _The order numbers matched._

The others would be in soon. Holding both pieces of paper, he strode into Murphy's office to wait.

xxxxxxxxx

"Look, I've looked at your file. You have a tendency to see connections where none exist."

The former Sergeant almost rolled his eyes. "You're saying you're not going to listen to what I have to say because I believe the moon landing was faked and the Kennedy assassination was staged?"

"Are you listening to yourself?" Murphy asked a little incredulously.

"First of all, there's plenty of evidence to support both of those things. Second, that's not relevant right now! I found that on Blaine's desk!"

"And you found the other copy on Benson's, but you're not accusing her of anything. That transaction is a piece of our case, and even I'll admit that Blaine's desk is a mess. What's more likely, that he's somehow orchestrated the investigation into his own crimes without ever getting caught despite the fact that every single victim saw her attacker's face, or that he has them because _he's investigating_?"

"He avoids victims like the plague," Munch countered.

"Not everyone's comfortable with victims, I heard Amaro say as much and I agree with him. Blaine's not comfortable dealing with the victims so he leaves that to my detectives and does his work behind the scenes. That's the point I was making by comparing this to some of your other theories. Conspiracy theories exist because people see connections and draw conclusions from every insignificant detail and coincidence."

"But -"

"Drop it, Munch. We're not going to find the real doer any faster if you get stuck on this mess. And don't pull my detectives into this, either. I need them chasing down real leads."

xxxxxxxxx

The entire day had been torture for Amanda, starting with that 3AM buzz on her door. Once she'd been able to get off the floor, she'd spent the entire night lying awake with her gun under her pillow. She'd realized pretty quickly what his intentions were in coming by. He hadn't expected her to let him in; he was just letting her know that he knew where she lived.

She'd half-expected something to be wrong with her car that morning and had been relieved when it had worked. But now she was driving aimlessly around the city. She couldn't go back to her apartment; what if he was waiting for her? She was so tired, she'd been driving for almost two hours and she knew she couldn't keep driving much longer, but where could she stop?

She ran down all her options. Olivia, Fin, and Nick still didn't entirely trust her after the gambling thing, and Nick in particular would be angry she'd kept this from him this long. She was basically confirming his distrust of her. She already owed Murphy way too much to go to him. Munch was a wild card and closer to each of the other three than he was to her; he could easily have picked up on their distrust. Who did that leave?

Then she heard a gentle voice in her head, a conversation she'd had months earlier. "I'm still here for you. If you ever need anything, just drop me a line. My door is open."

Finally, her driving took on a destination. She drove until she got to the familiar building and found a place to park. Hand shaking, she rang the buzzer. There was no answer.

_He must be out._ She considered going back to her car to wait, but it was half a block away, and she suddenly felt so tired that half a block seemed like miles. She sat down on the stoop and she waited.

Exhaustion hindered her perception of time, and she had no idea how long it was before she saw a familiar figure walking towards her. He looked up, recognizing her too. "Amanda?"

"Captain." It wasn't strictly accurate anymore, but she was so used to calling Cragen that that it was pretty much an impossible habit to break. She stood to meet him.

"What are you doing here? Are you okay?"

"No," she said, answering that question honestly for the first time in a week. "I didn't know who else to go to. I need help. I can't do this."

"Can't do what?" He reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder.

The moment she felt the gentle touch, her walls crumbled and she began to cry. He watched her in concern, quickly realizing that whatever was going on was worse, much worse, than he'd realized. "Come inside and we'll talk." He gently put an arm around her shoulders and led her in.

She nearly collapsed on the couch when they got into his apartment, and he sat down next to her. "Talk to me, Amanda. What's going on?"

She met his eyes, and they were so full of compassion and concern it made her want to cry harder. "I never told you why I had to leave Atlanta." She took a deep breath, and then she said it before anything could happen to make her hold herself back. "My sergeant raped me."

"He _what_?" Sudden anger filled Cragen's face, and Amanda flinched violently. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you, and it's not you I'm angry with."

"I never told anyone," she whispered. "I couldn't. I tried to forget it ever happened, and when that didn't work I tried to at least act like it, but I couldn't do that either, that's why my gambling got so out of control so fast." She swallowed. "He copycatted a serial rapist he was chasing. That rapist - he's in New York now, and so is Sergeant Blaine. He's working with SVU to catch this guy, and he's been following me around, making comments. Last night he showed up at my apartment, so now I can't even go home. He might be waiting for me."

"You haven't told the team?" he asked softly, careful to avoid any tone of accusation.

"I can't," she sobbed. "Just before you left - I had a relapse. I went back to gambling, and I spiraled down even faster this time. While Olivia was in command, I got into a mess with this club. It would've been a lot worse except one of the enforcers was actually an undercover cop and he brought me in on his bust. I lost the trust of all the SVU detectives, how can they trust me on this after that? How can I expect them to? I'm so scared, I don't know what to do."

He took her shaking hands in his and held them tightly. "I know them at least as well as you do, Amanda, and whatever you've done, they _will_ believe you."

"They'll never forgive me for keeping this from them."

"Yes, they will. Because you can't be expected to be rational about something like this, and they know it. And deep down, so do you." He squeezed her hands. "You need to tell, Amanda. It isn't fair to you to have to live in fear and it's not right to have someone like that walking around unchallenged. We can do it right here," he offered. "I'll call one of the detectives and I'll be by your side the whole time."

"Okay," she whispered. "Okay, I'll do it." She was still so scared she felt like she couldn't breathe, but if Cragen was there, she thought maybe she'd be able to get up the courage.

"Who do you want me to call?" He was going to give her as much control over this process as he possibly could.

"Olivia." This was going to be hard no matter who was taking her statement, but at least she wouldn't be quite starting at square one with the Sergeant.

"Okay."

xxxxxxxxx

It was a confused Olivia who showed up on her former boss' doorstep, and her confusion was joined by concern when she saw the pained look on his face. "What is it?"

"Rollins is here," he said softly. "She needs to talk to you."

"To me?" Olivia repeated. "About what?"

"I think you should ask her that yourself." By now they'd reached the front door of his apartment, and he pushed it open. Amanda was still sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket Cragen had slipped over her shoulders. Even without Cragen, Olivia would have known something was seriously wrong. The blonde had clearly been crying.

"Amanda?" Olivia asked gently. "What is it?"

She sat up a little and swallowed, reaching out to grab Cragen's hand. "Do you - do you remember when I told you something happened to me on the job in Atlanta?"

She did remember that conversation. Amanda had shut it down almost before it had started, and Olivia hadn't pushed her.

"You said not pursuing it is how they win. Well, I think you were right, and I can't let him win anymore." She began to cry again. "Sergeant Blaine raped me in Atlanta." It was easier, somehow, to say it the second time.

As Olivia sat in shocked silence, Amanda told her everything, all the details she'd left out of the condensed version she'd told Cragen. She told Olivia about how her car had been tampered with and how Blaine had offered her a ride. She told her about all the comments he'd made, lauding the White Knight's methods and insulting her. She told her about the assault itself, shaking uncontrollably as she relived every horrible detail of that night. And she told her about the call he'd paid her in the wee hours of the morning.

"I know you don't trust me," she finished, "and I know I deserved to lose your trust. But please, believe me on this. I would never say something like this unless it was true. Please..."

"Oh, sweetheart, of course I believe you," Olivia replied, feeling her throat sting with a desire to cry. "I know things have been strained between us since your undercover, but this - I could never doubt you about something like this." She paused to compose herself. "I know this is going to be hard for you, but we have to tell the rest of the team."

"I can't," she whispered. "I didn't talk about it at all for three _years_ , and then I've already told my story twice just tonight. I can't do it again, not now, I'm so tired, I just want to rest."

"I know," Olivia told her gently, and she did. She remembered how she'd felt after Lewis; so physically and emotionally exhausted she just wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep for days. "Listen, I'll tell them what you told me. If you don't want to be in the room, you don't have to be, just be in the building, then if they have any questions they can ask you."

"Who are we talking about?" The resigned tone in her voice suggested she was ready to agree.

"Fin, Amaro, Murphy, and Munch."

"Okay."

xxxxxxxxx

Olivia was greeted with a series of annoyed looks from the group of four assembled in the interview room, but she knew that would fade as soon as she told them what was going on.

"Still waiting on Rollins and Blaine," Fin informed her.

"Rollins already knows what I'm about to tell you, and Blaine wasn't invited." She felt her stomach twist just thinking about what kind of a monster she'd been interacting with.

And then she told them.

The looks on their faces mirrored what she knew her own must have looked like when Rollins had told her. She'd left out a few of the graphic details for the sake of simplicity and to protect her friend's privacy, but what she told them was more than enough.

"He _copycatted_ the _White Knight_?" Fin asked furiously. "The man he's supposedly working to bring down?"

"Maybe not," Munch said softly. He sent a look to Murphy, almost daring the man to stop him, but the Lieutenant only nodded. What they'd just learned made the older man's theory seem a lot less like wild speculation and a lot more like a genuine possibility. "I was looking for a file on Blaine's desk early this morning, and I found a receipt for the return of the same rental car that was used to abduct Laura Issac."

"That document wasn't in the file you and I got from the agency," Olivia said softly, starting to realize what Munch was getting at.

"I know," he said softly.

"You don't think -"

"It would explain a lot. Why he always runs out of the room when the victims show up. He doesn't want them to see him because they could identify him."

Murphy gave a long sigh. "All right. We'll arrest him first thing in the morning. In the meantime, no contact between him and any of us. The last thing we want to do is tip him off."

xxxxxxxxx

Amanda tensed instinctively when the crib door banged open but relaxed again when she recognized the figure standing there. "Nick..." she began uncertainly. "Nick, I'm s -"

"Don't," he said firmly. "Don't you dare say you're sorry. None of this is your fault, you hear me? _None_." He opened his arms to her and she stepped into them, letting him wrap her up in a warm hug. "We're not going to let him hurt you again, Amanda. I promise."

"What Nick said," came her partner's voice from the doorway. "That son of a bitch is not coming near you again."

"Liv told us he's been bothering you at home," Nick added, and felt her nod against his shoulder. "You can sleep at my place tonight. I already told her and Murphy you'd be staying with me. Fin's going to go take a look at your place in case he's hanging around."

No words would come to her, and so she allowed him to lead her out to his car.

xxxxxxxxx

Amanda was practically asleep on her feet by the time Nick pulled his car into his driveway, and he put his arm on her shoulders to walk her inside. She watched intently as he locked the door.

He walked her up the stairs to his bedroom and sat her on his bed. "This door locks from the inside," he explained gently. "Maria and I put it in so Zara wouldn't walk in on us. If you lock this and the bathroom door, there's no way for anyone to get in unless you let them. You want something to sleep in?" He pulled out a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt without waiting for an answer. She took them just as silently and slipped into the bathroom to change. She wanted a hot shower, but she was so tired she thought she might not make it through one.

Nick was changed too when she came out of the bathroom, wearing something similar to what he'd given her. "Come on, let's get you into bed."

"Why aren't you mad at me?" she asked suddenly. "I've been lying to you for a week, and you're acting like you don't care about that at all. I _expected_ you to be mad at me."

He pulled her into his arms. "Oh, Amanda, I'm not mad, not at all. I'm just sorry you didn't think you could come to me. Whatever I did to make you think that, I'm sorry. That man tortured you day after day, and I'm sorry I didn't see it."

_He_ was apologizing to _her_? "I should've told you."

"Shh, it's okay," he soothed, gently running his hands over her back. "He scares you, I know he does. Whatever your reasons, I know you didn't do this to deceive me. How could I ever be mad at you for this?" He laid a gentle kiss on her hair.

She clung to him, her fingers tight in his shirt. "You won't let him hurt me?" She hated the words even as they slipped from her mouth, it sounded so childlike and needy.

But Nick didn't seem to mind. "No, Amanda. I won't let him hurt you."

She briefly entertained the thought that she wanted to stay here, in his embrace, forever, but that thought was interrupted as her body finally did what it had been threatening to do all night and gave out completely. Her knees buckled, and if Nick hadn't had his arms around her, she would have fallen.

"Oh, you're exhausted," he said, worry evident in his voice. "Come on." He carried her the last few feet to the bed and laid her down. "You know where the guest room is, if you need me during the night."

"You're not going to stay here?"

"I didn't know if you'd be okay with that." He lightly stroked her forehead, pushing her hair back. "The last thing I want to do is push you into something you're uncomfortable with."

"Please stay," she whispered. "Please, I - I don't think I can deal with being alone right now."

He slid into the bed next to her, and she reached out to him weakly. He did the rest, drawing her into his arms. "Just go to sleep," he whispered. "I won't let anyone hurt you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had that opening line in mind for months, I'm so excited that I finally get to use it.
> 
> The whole thing with Cragen and Rollins is partly my own supposition, but he does have the "father to his men" thing going on, and he does do his best to support Rollins when he finds out about her gambling problem.
> 
> Please leave comments; I'd love to hear what you think.


	5. The Game is Over

She felt cold. It was the first thing she noticed as consciousness began to seep back in. Waking slowly, she realized Nick's arms were no longer wrapped around her. Her heart began to race. "Nick?"

And then he was there, running his fingers through her hair. "What is it?"

"I woke up and you weren't there," she replied, realizing as she said it how silly she sounded. With him there, her fear seemed to lose some of its hold on her. "I thought maybe something happened to you."

He bent to kiss her forehead. "I'm sorry, I should've let you know I was getting up, but you were so tired last night, I didn't want to wake you."

"You're going in?" Stupid question. Of course he was. She likely would have been too, if Murphy hadn't pretty much ordered her to take a few days.

He nodded. "I'll be back later. In the meantime, you know where everything is, right?"

"Uh huh."

"You still tired?"

"Yeah."

He slipped his hand into hers. "You want me to sit here until you fall asleep?"

"You sure? I don't want to make you late."

"Don't worry about it. First of all, I've got plenty of time, and second, no one's going to give me a hard time over being late today." His free hand was still running through her hair. "Just go to sleep. It's going to be all right."

She was asleep in seconds.

xxxxxxxxx

"What's the status?" Nick asked the moment he was through the squad room door.

"Allison Mayfield is already on her way down, and Liv's on the phone with Laura Issac now," Fin told him. "How's Amanda?"

"Shaky, but I think she'll be okay. He really spooked her with that late-night visit. Any sign of _him_ yet?"

Fin shook his head. "I drove by Amanda's place last night, checked the lot and everything, and didn't see him. I can't believe he took us all in like that."

"I can't believe we hurt her enough for her to think she couldn't talk to us," Nick replied, sounding like he was on the verge of losing it completely, and it was pretty clear that _we_ really meant _I_. "I was pissed, I know, but I never meant - I never stopped caring about her."

"It's not that simple," his partner's voice said softly from behind him. Her eyes locked with Fin's, and a hundred words passed between them without either of them having to speak. "She's scared, Nick. You can't expect everything she does to have a perfectly rational basis."

"She expected me to be mad at her for not telling me sooner," he said almost brokenly.

Fin shook his head a little sadly, glancing around to make sure only Olivia and Nick would hear him and lowering his voice even so. "I get the sense her family isn't the most supportive of her - I don't think she was actually abused, but I also don't think she had much in the way of understanding or emotional support growing up. You've met her sister - Amanda's the younger sister, but I think she was mostly forced to be Kim's caretaker."

Olivia was nodding slowly. "Yeah, I could see that." There was no need to explain how she could see that; both Nick and Fin were aware of where she came from. "If you don't expect anything, you can't be disappointed."

Fin looked like he was about to reply, but instead he suddenly sat up straight. "Scumbag at two o'clock."

Olivia immediately saw her partner tense up, and laid a hand on his arm. "Don't do it, Nick," she said under her breath. "I know you want to, but don't do it."

On cue, several uniformed officers slowly moved into position. They weren't obvious enough that Blaine was likely to notice, but they were close enough to spring into action if he made a break for the door when he realized his game was up.

Clearly, someone had gone to get Murphy, who appeared a few seconds later. Blaine eyed the assembled group. "What is it? Another victim?"

"Something like that," Amaro said through gritted teeth. Olivia kept her hand on his arm, ready to grab him if he lost his temper and tried to go after the man. She didn't blame him in the slightest for his anger, but the last thing they needed was a tainted arrest.

Fortunately, Murphy stepped in before Amaro's patience had a chance to run out. "You're under arrest."

"I - what?"

"You're under arrest for the rape and kidnapping of Allison Mayfield and Laura Issac. You have the right to remain silent -"

"I know my rights!"

"You have the right to remain silent," he repeated, "and I suggest you use it! You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you..."

xxxxxxxxx

"That's him. Number three."

The words were out of Laura Issac's mouth almost as soon as the blind was raised, just as they had been from Allison Mayfield's. It appeared Munch's instinct had been right; Blaine was the man they were looking for, and his habit of forcing the victims to look at him throughout the act was backfiring on him in a big way.

"Thank you." Olivia waved to an officer to take her out.

Barba turned to Blaine's lawyer. "That's two, and I've already called the Atlanta DA. They'll probably be asking us to extradite within the week. The only question is where he'll be tried."

"I need to speak to my client," the man said briskly.

"How tight is this case?" Olivia asked Barba once the defense attorney was on the other side of the glass.

"On our end? I can't see how he'd wiggle out of it - of course, that's no guarantee of anything these days," he added bitterly, calling to all of them memories airtight cases where the perp had walked, "but it doesn't look good for him. As for Atlanta, that all depends on the detective work in question. The fact that the suspect was basically _running_ the investigation may become an issue, he had a lot of access to the records."

"Except he had to run and hide so the victims wouldn't see him," Olivia pointed out. "That means other officers handled a huge portion of the investigation. If we can prevent them from closing ranks around him..."

"There has to be one," Amaro said, an edge of desperation in his voice. "That's all we need, one officer who's not willing to cover for a dirty cop."

Olivia knew that tone. She'd known for a while now how much her partner cared for Amanda, and she knew he was upset about what had happened to her and scared that Blaine wouldn't pay for his crimes.

"Sorry I'm late, there was a five-car pileup on the bridge," Munch's voice said from the doorway. "What did I miss?"

"Both our victims IDed Blaine," Fin told him. "Murphy's getting some static from Atlanta PD, but he thinks they'll come around eventually; they may not like it, but they can't just pretend this didn't happen, the White Knight's been on too many front pages for them to ignore this kind of lead."

"Wasn't Detective Rollins involved on the case in Atlanta?" Barba pointed out, and it was only then that Olivia realized he was out of the loop. "I can't imagine she'd cover for this asshole."

"Can we talk for a minute, Counselor?" Olivia said softly, waving him into a side room. She could see Munch still talking to Fin and Amaro.

"Is there a problem?"

"I just need to bring you up to speed," she told him. "Rollins isn't a part of this investigation anymore."

"I take it something happened," he said a little wryly.

"Nothing she's responsible for," Olivia replied, unable to keep a hint of defensiveness out of her voice. "Rollins disclosed to me yesterday that she was one of Blaine's victims in Atlanta."

"And we didn't know about this before because...?"

"Cops close ranks around their own, and he's a lot more firmly entrenched in the department than she was," Olivia said regretfully. "She never told anyone. It shouldn't affect the case. Nick and I were the primaries, we talked to the victims and Munch and I were the ones who got that rental receipt."

"Okay. Okay. I'll have to do a little fast talking to keep the defense from undermining our case -"

Olivia smiled despite herself. "Isn't that what you do best, Counselor?"

xxxxxxxxx

Five-fifteen. Nick should be home soon.

After waking up, she'd gotten the hot shower she'd craved the night before, but she couldn't bring herself to face the idea of leaving the locked room. Blaine really had scared her by showing up at her apartment. There was no place that he would consider off-limits. She had to protect herself or he would come and he would hurt her for telling.

She heard a loud knock on the bedroom door, but before she had a chance to panic, a voice followed it. "Amanda? It's me. Can I come in?"

She got up and unlocked the door to let him in. He looked her over, concerned. "Are you okay?"

"What happened with _him_?" she asked in reply.

"He's at Riker's, he'll be arraigned tomorrow. Barba's going to try to argue for remand, but it's going to depend which judge we draw."

"So he could get out," she replied flatly.

He placed a hand on her shoulder and realized she was shaking. "Shh, it'll be okay, I'll protect you." He pulled her close. "Barba thinks it's likely Atlanta's going to extradite anyway - even if he's free on bail down there, he won't be allowed to leave the state." He ran his fingers through her hair. "Have you been in here all day?"

She nodded. "The door locks. You don't know how hard it was in Atlanta, having to leave my house every day when all I wanted to do was sit behind every locked door I had in that place. And now - I'm scared he'll hurt me for telling you what happened."

"I know you are," he soothed. "I know. But I won't let him."

"Why are you so good to me?" she whispered.

"Because I care, sweetheart. That's all the reason I need." He placed a kiss on the top of her head. "You need anything? You must be hungry."

She was. She was starving, she hadn't eaten in almost two days. More than once that day she'd thought about going down to the kitchen to get something to eat, but hungry as she was, the idea of leaving the locked room had been more than she was ready to tolerate.

"Yeah, I'm hungry," she said softly.

"I'll cook you something. Can you come down to the kitchen?"

Tears pricked at her eyes. He hadn't even _told_ her to come to the kitchen, he'd _asked_ , to be absolutely sure she was comfortable. "I'm okay as long as you're here."

xxxxxxxxx

Nick was woken suddenly by a scream. "Amanda?" he called out, recognizing the voice. "Amanda?"

As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he realized she was still lying beside him in bed, huddled up with her knees to her chest. As he reached out to touch her, he realized her clothes were soaked with sweat.

He took her shoulder and shook it. "Amanda, it's okay, it's just a nightmare. Come on, wake up."

She did, suddenly sitting upright, gasping for breath. "Oh, Lord," she whispered.

"You're okay," Nick said gently. "You're okay. I'm here."

She reached for him and he obliged her, taking her in a warm embrace. She shook in his arms as he rocked her gently. "You want to tell me about it?"

"N-no," she replied uncertainly, as if afraid she was giving him the wrong answer. "I don't want - I don't want to have to go over it again."

"That's okay too," he soothed. "Just hold onto me, then."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, clinging to him. "I'm such a mess. I'm sorry for making you take care of me."

"Don't," he replied. "Don't do that. Don't apologize. This isn't your fault." What Fin had said began to resonate even more strongly with him. _She's not used to being cared for._ "It's _okay_ , Amanda. I know you're scared, and that's okay. I'm here for you."

She sniffed, and he could tell she was fighting not to cry. "I didn't take a single sick day in Atlanta when it happened. I got up and went to work the next day - it took all the strength I had, but I did it, and now I can't, I'm falling apart all over you and everyone else."

He brushed her hair back and kissed her forehead. "You had no choice back then. When there's no safety net to catch you, you have to fight to your last ounce of strength not to fall, so you buried all your pain and just kept going. You're falling apart now because all that buried pain is coming back to the surface, but you're also falling apart because now it's an option, because you know I'm here to catch you when you fall." He placed another kiss on her forehead. "And I never want you to apologize for that. I _want_ to be here for you. I want you to feel safe enough with me to let your emotions out."

"I do."

He began rubbing gentle circles on her back. "I know that you feel safe from Blaine with me, but I want you to feel safe _from_ me too. I'm not going to leave you for crying in front of me, or needing me, or anything like that. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you'd be here for me if I needed you, and I promise you, I'll be here for you through this."

She began to cry then, a near-silent stream of tears that nonetheless shook her entire body, much harder than she'd cried in front of Cragen and Olivia, sobbing herself to sleep in his arms as he held her and rocked her.

xxxxxxxxx

She woke up with her head on her boyfriend's chest, his arms securely wrapped around her. He stirred too, reaching out to turn the alarm off. "Sorry about that," he apologized sleepily, "but I had to get myself up somehow. You can go back to sleep."

"Wasn't going to." She slowly pushed herself to a sitting position. "Arraignment's later today, isn't it?"

"You don't have to go to that," he replied.

"I want to," she replied. "I feel better after last night, and I want him to know I'm not too scared to look him in the eye. Not anymore."

"Okay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this is mostly fluff, but nothing wrong with a healthy dose of fluff every now and again.
> 
> What I wrote about Rollins' family is mostly speculation, based on the way her sister treats her in Deadly Ambition and what she mentions about her father in Rapist Anonymous. (I actually think that canon was supposed to have Amanda as the older sister, but for some reason I got it in my head that she was the younger, and it stuck.)


	6. Against the World

"Amanda!"

She turned her head to see Fin, Munch, Olivia, and Nick all standing there in the courthouse lobby, walking her way. Fin reached her first. "Hey, girl. You doing okay?"

"I'm gonna be okay." She attempted to smile but couldn't quite manage.

He laid a large hand on her shoulder, rubbing it gently. "We're all here for you."

She had to blink hard against her tears. No, she'd been wrong to think this would be anything like it would have been in Atlanta. Those people had been her colleagues; no matter what her old Captain's position, these were her friends.

Fin stepped back, allowing Olivia to gently hug the younger woman. They all cared, but Olivia was the one who'd been there, who actually knew what Amanda was going through, and they all knew that Amanda might need Olivia to help her through this. "If you need anything," she whispered, "someone to talk to, whatever. I'm here."

"Thank you."

"Come on, let's head upstairs."

"Detective." Barba came running down the hall and all but skidded to a halt in front of them. "Rollins."

"Yes?"

"Olivia told me what happened. I'm sorry." He moved quickly on to the matter at hand, and Rollins was grateful. At least some things were still the same. "I need your permission to charge him with stalking."

"What? Why?"

"Two reasons. First, to boost my case for holding him without bail. And second, if he does get bail, I can ask the judge to throw in an order of protection as part of it."

Again, she was choked up. She knew Barba well enough to know that this was his businesslike, unemotional way of saying he cared. "Okay."

xxxxxxxxx

"People vs. Charles Blaine. Two counts rape in the first degree, two counts kidnapping in the first degree, one count stalking in the first degree."

The judge regarded the Atlanta man. "How does the defendant plead?"

"Not guilty."

"People on bail?"

"People request remand," Barba said briskly. "In addition to the two women he abducted and raped in New York, he's a suspect in twenty similar attacks in Atlanta, five of which left the victims severely injured, and the stalking charge relates to a member of the New York Police Department."

"Your Honor," the defense attorney protested, "the attacks in question stretch back two years. Until yesterday, he had never been charged with a crime."

"He's cunning," Barba replied. "If anything, that should be further reason to deny bail. He's evaded capture this long; what's to say he won't disappear if he's granted bail?"

"I agree with Mr. Barba. Bail is denied. Five minute recess!"

Nick squeezed Amanda's hand as they stood up and filed out of the courtroom. It was in the hallway that she heard a familiar voice. "Hey, Rollins!"

She stopped. So did Nick and Fin, recognizing the voice, the Atlanta accent so similar to Amanda's own, and Fin managed to grab Olivia's sleeve and stop her without being obvious about it.

"Captain?" she said softly, her mind racing. _Does he know?_ She was vaguely aware of her colleagues clumping up behind her, silently backing her up

"You knew about this?" He gestured to the courtroom to indicate what 'this' he was talking about.

"Yes," she replied uncertainly, waiting for him to get to the point. She wasn't sure what to expect. Reynolds had been the one to save her from the Deputy Chief and to help her make the move to New York, but he'd worked with Blaine a lot longer than he'd worked with her, and this one he hadn't seen with his own eyes.

"You really believe he's capable of this? God's sake, Rollins. You know the man."

"Yeah," she said softly. "I do, and that's why I believe he's capable of this."

"C'mon. I know you had a bad experience with that deputy chief, but -"

"This is _not_ about that!" she replied. Suddenly, she didn't feel sad and scared anymore. She was angry. "Guys like you all think their fellow cops - their fellow _male_ cops, I should say - can't do anything wrong. If you hadn't walked in while that deputy chief had his hand down my dress, I bet you wouldn't believe that had happened either."

She'd kept her voice down so the entire hallway wouldn't hear, but she knew that her former Captain was getting every word, and so were her New York colleagues. Reynolds just looked shocked. "I helped you on that," he reminded her. "What's gotten into you?"

"You want to know what _really_ happened in Atlanta?" She barreled ahead, not giving him a chance to answer. "Blaine raped me." For once, it didn't hurt to say it. Anger was driving all of this, pushing the other feelings out. "Just like he did all those other girls. He screwed with my car and then he offered me a ride and I took it, because why wouldn't I trust one of my own, right? And he _raped_ me. And you know, until now, I'd actually been feeling guilty about not telling you, about using the deputy chief thing to get out of Atlanta when really I couldn't stand to stay because of _him_. But now I don't anymore, because if I _had_ told you, you would've thought I was making the whole thing up!"

"And you're only telling me this now?" Reynolds replied, sounding skeptical. "What, two years later? With no evidence but your word?"

"Hey," Olivia said suddenly. "How many rape cases have you worked?"

"Ever?" Reynolds asked, turning to scrutinize the older detective. "Maybe twenty or so."

"Well, I've been SVU for fifteen years, and I work that many every three months or less. And I can tell you right now, there are plenty of reasons victims don't come forward right away. This insistence on evidence is one of them. Blaine didn't leave physical evidence at any of his crimes. Even if she'd come to you the night it had happened, she would've had no evidence but her word. Can you honestly look me in the eyes and say you would've believed her then? Because the way you're acting now, I can see why she didn't come to you."

"Come on, Amanda." Nick stepped forward and took her hand, lacing her fingers in with his. "Don't waste your breath on this idiot. Let's go."

She walked with Nick out to his car, flanked by the other two. She felt strangely light-headed as Nick helped her into the front seat. "I can't believe I just did that."

Fin was smiling warmly. "I'm proud of you, girl. That guy deserved every word of what you heaped on him."

"I didn't like him the first time I met him, and I like him less now," Nick added.

"It feels good," Amanda said softly, "like even though I didn't stand up to him directly, I sort of did anyway."

"You stood up to the system that protects guys like him," Olivia told her. "That's no small thing." She exchanged a quick glance with Fin, and she knew he was thinking of the same thing she was, of the moment when she'd arrested a corrupt prison guard who the system had protected, a prison guard who had tried to rape her while she was undercover as a prisoner.

"I'm gonna take her home, and then I'll be back at the office in an hour or so." Nick said as he climbed into the driver's seat.

"Home?" Amanda asked uncertainly as she pulled the door closed.

He smiled, realizing what was bothering her. "My place." He laid his hand over hers. "You can stay as long as you want, Amanda. I won't kick you out."

xxxxxxxxx

"You spoken to Rollins recently?"

"The fact that you're asking me suggests you have." Cragen glanced over the Atlanta captain. "Why did you want to talk to me?"

"I know you," Reynolds replied. "That's your former unit, cops you handpicked, persecuting my guy, and you've worked with Rollins more recently than I have. Why would she say what she did?"

"You seriously don't believe her?" Cragen asked incredulously.

"You do?"

"Are you sure you really spoke to her?" Cragen was quickly moving towards anger. "Because if you'd seen what I did, you'd have to be the most cold-hearted bastard in the world _not_ to believe her. She came to me because she was scared to death of him and didn't know who to turn to."

"When I talked to her, all I got was anger."

"How did you approach her?" Cragen countered. "If you accused her of lying or came in suggesting Blaine was innocent, I have no doubt she was angry."

"No evidence. It's his word against hers," Reynolds said, flailing a little.

"A lot of violent crimes are, Sam," Cragen reminded him without missing a beat. "Use your head for five seconds. What would Amanda gain by making all this up? This whole thing's going to be rough as hell on her, she'll be called a liar and a slut who knows how many times and in the end, she basically ends up right where she started. On the other hand, Blaine has every reason to lie about being a rapist." He took a breath, letting the other man gather his thoughts. "I get it on some level. It's not like I've never worked with a bad cop before - back in the nineties, what I thought was one of my best guys turned out to have covered up a murder. You're wondering how this could've happened, how you could've worked with such a monster for years and never known it. But don't let that translate to letting Rollins down. She was one of your people too."

Reynolds was silent for a long moment, closing his eyes and putting his face in his hands. "He really did it, didn't he? Oh, God, he really did it."

"I believe he did," Cragen said evenly.

"Oh, God," the younger man said again. "How did I miss it?"

"If there's one thing I learned working Special Victims, it's that rapists don't, to borrow a turn of phrase from a friend, glow in the dark. They can be anyone. One of the first things people who investigate sex crimes have to learn is that there's no such thing as someone who couldn't be a perp."

"You sound just like a woman who was with Rollins," he said wryly. "She told me that if I didn't believe Rollins now, I wouldn't have believed her back when it happened either, and so she was right not to tell me. I think she was a colleague of Rollins'."

"Taller woman, dark hair?"

"Yeah, that's her."

"Sergeant Olivia Benson." Cragen smiled. "She holds the current record for the longest term in SVU."

"I can see why," Reynolds admitted. "If I were a perp, she'd be the last person I'd want to cross. So, what should I do now?"

"My first advice is to back off. Rollins is going to have a hard time trusting you again, and the more you force it, the worse it's going to be. If you want to help her, help her behind the scenes. Do what you can to make sure no prosecutor lets Blaine off easy. Let her _see_ that you support her. In time, she'll figure out that you're on her side."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm aware that the Reynolds in this chapter is probably a bit more sympathetic than he was in the series, but at the time I started conceiving the idea for this story, the only episode he'd appeared in was Strange Beauty, where he comes off as a bit more supportive than he does later in the series. He did seem a bit too"good-old-boy" for my tastes, so I wrote him along those lines.
> 
> This chapter references the SVU episode Strange Beauty. The reference to sexual abusers glowing in the dark comes from the original Law and Order series episode Bad Faith; the friend of Cragen's who said that is his successor at the 2-7, Lieutenant Van Buren. The mention of the officer of Cragen's who covered up a murder is a reference to the Law and Order movie Exiled.


	7. Three Months Later

Olivia might have been trying to conceal the grin on her face, but it wasn't working. The little bounce in her step wasn't exactly hiding her mood either.

Amaro spoke first. "All right, spill it. What's got you in such a good mood?"

To everyone's surprise, Olivia blushed bright pink and bit down on her lip. Then she shyly held her left hand out so Amaro could see it. More precisely, so he could see what was _on_ it.

Amaro grinned too as he caught sight of the ornament on her third finger, and he stepped forward to hug her. "Congratulations, Liv," he said sincerely.

"'Bout time Stabler popped the question," Fin added, walking over to hug her too. "Happy for both of you, girl."

"It's great," Amanda agreed, also hugging her friend. "When's the big day?"

"Two months. I know it's soon, but this has been a long time coming."

"You can say that again," Fin muttered.

Amanda gently smacked her partner on the arm. "For God's sake, the man was married!"

"Still, you should've seen the two of them."

Olivia laughed lightly, notably not denying what they were saying.

"So," Amaro pressed, "how are the kids taking it?"

"Elliot's older kids aren't really around much, but we called to tell them last night and they all seemed happy for us - and I can usually tell when they're lying," she added. "Eli started jumping up and down when we told him. I know he still misses his mom, but he's gotten used to me and we're close - I think he sees this marriage as an assurance that I'm not going away."

"And Noah's too young to know the difference," Amaro finished.

"Well," Olivia said slowly, shifting her weight a little, "that's our other piece of news. We talked last night, and as soon as we're married, Elliot and I are going to start the process to legally make Noah our son."

This was greeted with another round of cheers and hugs. Olivia had been a foster mother to the boy for the better part of a year now, and even though Elliot wasn't on any of the paperwork, he'd taken to the little boy in the same way Olivia had taken to Eli.

"Hey." Murphy's voice floated over to them. "Hate to break up this party, but Rollins, I need you in my office. Now." Then his tone softened a fraction. "Actually, all four of you ought to come in for this."

Sharing confused looks, they filed in. Murphy closed the door and turned to face his assembled detectives, mostly focusing his gaze on Rollins. "I just spoke to the Atlanta DA," he told them. "Blaine's trial is scheduled to start in two weeks." And with those words, all the joy in the room seemed to evaporate.

Blaine had, as predicted, been extradited back to Atlanta to face the much greater stack of charges there. The DA in question had been informed about what had happened to Rollins, but he had yet to make contact with her.

Nick's hand slipped into hers, and she squeezed it as she spoke. "When do they want me to testify?"

Murphy let out a long breath before he spoke. "There's - there's no easy way to say this. They're charging him on the other nineteen rapes, but they're not going forward with the charges on the crimes he committed against you."

Gasps and exclamations of disbelief filled the room. Besides Murphy himself, the only person who didn't react was the one person most directly affected. She just stared at the unit commander as the voices of the other three swirled around her. Her legs suddenly felt weak and she swayed a little.

Nick saw when her balance became unsteady, and he instantly stopped the outraged rant he'd been in the middle of to put his arm around her waist and help her stay on her feet. Fin and Olivia noticed a moment later, and their protests were also swallowed up by their concern.

"I'm sorry, girl," Fin said softly. "I know that's rough."

"It's my fault," she said miserably. "They can't charge him for what happened to me because I waited so long to come forward."

"Bullshit," Olivia said crisply. "They've got nineteen other crimes matching the same pattern. Maybe it wouldn't be a slam dunk, but they have enough to get in front of a jury. Amanda," she added, her voice softening, "it's horrible that the system is treating you so badly after what you went through, but it's not your fault. If that DA wanted to, he could have indicted the guy for your case right along with the others. Seems to me he just didn't want to put in the effort."

"I still - I still want to go to the trial," she said softly. "I need to."

Murphy nodded. "I already had the paperwork drawn up when I thought you'd be called. Take the time you need, and I'll sort it out with upstairs."

"Thank you. Excuse me?" The air in Murphy's office felt stifling suddenly, and she just wanted to get out.

The others watched her go. Fin shook his head. "Someone ought to go with her. I don't like the thought of her dealing with this by herself."

"Niether do I," Murphy agreed, "but I'm sorry, I can't spare any of you right now. It's gonna be hard enough sparing Rollins herself." He sighed. "I don't suppose there's anyone else, anyone _not_ in this department right now who could go with her."

Fin and Amaro shook their heads. Olivia started to do the same, then stopped herself. "Well, there might be someone. There are a few calls I've been meaning to make; I should be able to kill two birds with one stone." She pulled her phone out of her pocket, flipped to her contacts list, and scrolled down until she found what she was looking for.

He answered on the third ring. " _Hello?_ "

"Captain," she replied out of habit, "it's Olivia. There are a couple things I need to tell you."

xxxxxxxxx

Cragen was drawn out of the book he was reading by a soft cry from his right. He immediately turned his attention to the blonde detective sitting in the window seat next to him.

He gently took her shoulder in his hand and shook it. "Amanda, wake up. It's okay."

Her eyes flew open, her body going rigid. "Did I - did I call out or something?" she asked, embarrassed.

"I doubt anyone else heard." He gently took her hand in his and squeezed it. "It's okay. I know you're having a hard time with this."

"I can't believe they're not letting me testify," she admitted. "I finally manage to get it together to confront him, and then the DA just gets to say 'sorry, we don't feel like putting in the effort'? And just like that, everything I agonized over is worth nothing."

"Not nothing," Cragen corrected gently. "It was because you came forward that the team was able to link Blaine to those other rapes, and from there make the case on the Atlanta victims. And besides, you feel better, don't you, not carrying that secret around?"

She nodded.

"There, you see? I know how hard it was for you to talk about what happened, but something good did come of it. The good _you_ get out of it is important too."

Tears sprang to her eyes before she could stop them. The way he talked to her so often reminded her of Nick talking to Zara, one of many things her own father had never done for her. She wiped at them harshly with her free hand. She couldn't cry here, on an airplane in front of strangers.

Cragen squeezed the hand he still held. "It's okay," he whispered again. "It's okay."

xxxxxxxxx

"Rollins!"

She stopped, looking to Cragen briefly as she turned to face the Atlanta captain, feeling as if she was playing out the scene in the New York courthouse all over again. "Whatever you have to say, I don't want to hear it."

He took a step back, hands raised. "Look, I'm sorry for what I said back in New York, okay? I was out of my depth, I didn't know how to react."

"I don't care," she said softly. "Just - just get out of my life, okay?"

"I believe you," he insisted. "I just needed time to get my head around what I was hearing."

"Which words don't you understand? I. Don't. Care."

"I get it, all right? I do, but just listen for a second, all right? I need your help."

"On this case?" she asked bitterly. "You guys didn't seem to need my help when you were making your witness list."

He flinched a little. "I fought the ADA on charging Blaine for your case, but he wouldn't have it, and in the end, I didn't get a say. But Rollins, we have a problem. All of the women were willing to testify when they thought it was just a civilian. But now they know their attacker was a cop, we've got a few we're on the brink of losing. The cops working with them have talked themselves blue in the faces, but it's not making a difference. I told you, I believe you. I _believe_ you went through the same thing they did, at the hands of the same man. If they'll listen to anyone, they'll listen to you."

She drew a long, deep breath. "Okay."

"Amanda." Cragen spoke for the first time; he'd been letting her handle the situation once he'd seen that she could. "Are you sure you can do this?"

"I _want_ to do it," she replied evenly. "I wanted to testify to take him down. If the only way I can do it is by proxy, that's what I want. But," she added to Reynolds, "I'm not giving a group seminar. I talk to them one-on-one or not at all."

"Understood."

"Where do you want me to start?"

"You took Terri Martin's original statement, didn't you?"

She nodded. She'd never forget that interview, less than a month after her own attack. She'd tried her best to help Terri, but she'd spent most of the interview just trying to hold back flashbacks in her own mind.

"She's one of the shaky ones; there are four total. I'll put each of them in a separate room."

"Okay."

xxxxxxxxx

"Terri?" Amanda pushed the door open slowly. "I don't know if you remember me -"

"Of course," she said icily. "Detective Rollins. So they sent you in to talk to me too."

"Yeah, they did."

"You didn't listen to me the first time," she said, still not looking at the detective. "Oh, you pretended to, but I could see your eyes glazing over."

Amanda flinched but didn't deny it. "Terri, I'm sorry."

"I already told those other cops, I don't want to do this. Do you have any idea what it's like, Detective? To be thrown in a car at gunpoint, raped and degraded like that, and then to find out the man who did all that to me is a _cop_? Do you have any idea?"

Amanda swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. "Actually, Terri - I do."

"If you're just saying that -"

"I'm not," Amanda interrupted. "The same thing happened to me."

The other woman's head snapped around to look at her for the first time. "What?"

"About three weeks before he attacked you, Sergeant Blaine also attacked me. At the time, I thought he was just copycatting - I never thought he was the real thing. Oh, God, Terri, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry he hurt you because I was too much of a coward to tell someone what he did to me. I'm sorry that when you did what I couldn't, when I should've been listening to you, I spent the whole time tuning you out instead because I couldn't cope with what I was going through. I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Terri was staring incredulously at her. "But - you're a cop yourself. Why wouldn't you tell someone?"

"There's a hierarchy in the cop world. Experience before rookie, man before woman. I knew whose side they'd take."

"Are -" Terri began hesitantly. "Are you going to testify?"

"I want to," Amanda replied, "but they won't let me. Because I didn't come forward right away, they're not even charging him for what he did to me."

"That's awful." Terri shook her head. "Look at us. You want to testify and you can't, and I don't want to touch that witness stand with a ten-foot pole and they're calling in the big guns to try and force me to change my mind."

"I know you're scared," Amanda told her gently, "but I know you can do this. I know you were ready to do this before you found out you were dealing with a cop, weren't you?"

"Yeah. But, I mean, I _am_."

"Listen to me. I of all people know what kind of image the cop title carries with it, but I also know that that title doesn't change what he did to you, and it doesn't mean he shouldn't be held accountable."

"What if the jury doesn't believe me?" Terri whispered.

"It's always a possibility, I'm not going to lie. But there are going to be nineteen of you out there, all telling variations on the same story. I think it's incredibly likely that the jury will believe you."

Terri took several long, audible breaths. "Okay," she said finally. "I'll do it."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that." She drew another long breath. "I guess I just needed to be reminded of why I wanted to testify in the first place. None of the guys were looking at it from my perspective. All they could talk about was the damn case and how I was making it harder for them. And detective - you don't have to be sorry for keeping what happened to you a secret. I was inches away from doing the same."

"I'm still sorry about the way I handled your case. I should've excused myself and sent someone else in when I realized I couldn't handle it."

Terri shrugged. "Look, I'm not going to say you handled it perfectly. But I understand how hard it it is. I was angry because I thought you didn't care. Now that I know what was really going on, I'm not angry anymore. And I'm sorry they're not letting you testify. And I'll try to do you proud out there, okay?"

"Don't do it for me. Do it for yourself."

xxxxxxxxx

"Any luck on those witnesses?" the harried ADA asked the Atlanta police captain. "Tell me your guys managed to talk them around."

"My guys had no luck," Reynolds said grimly. "I did find someone else who might have a shot, but I haven't heard - oh, there she is now." He waved the blonde woman over. "ADA Henry Patterson, Detective Amanda Rollins." He turned to the woman. "Any luck?"

She nodded. "All four women have agreed to go ahead with their testimony."

Patterson's jaw dropped. "How? We've had people talking to them for days."

"Talking to them, I'm sure. Listening to them, I don't know. What I got from them is that from the time they started questioning their decisions to testify, you were pushing it on them from _your_ perspective. All they wanted was for someone to consider the situation from their point of view and then talk to them from that angle. Anyway, you've got your witnesses." She couldn't keep the biting edge out of her voice.

Patterson picked up on it. "Wait a second. Amanda Rollins? You're the one who -"

"Yeah," she said sharply, cutting him off.

"Look, I'm sorry, I know you were ready to testify. But it's been over two years, it just wouldn't have been possible -"

"Just stop, okay? I get it, you've got a slam dunk on the other nineteen and so you don't want to put in the work to convict him on charges for a twentieth attack when it wouldn't make a practical difference anyway. Besides the fact that I can't force you to change your mind, I'm honestly just too damn tired to try. But don't say _it wouldn't have been possible_. I'd rather hear you say you just don't give a damn. At least that would be honest." She turned to Reynolds. "Have you seen Captain Cragen?"

"Still can't break that habit, can you?" He smiled. "Pacing down at the end of the hall, last I saw. He's worried about you."

Cragen was, in fact, still pacing when Amanda walked up to him. He looked up and stopped. "How was it?"

"Four for four." She tried to smile.

"I had no doubt. But I actually meant, how did it go for you? Are you okay?"

"I'm - I'm tired." Understatement of the century. She was so physically and emotionally exhausted that she was a little surprised she was still standing upright.

Cragen wasn't fooled. One look into her eyes and he could tell how much pain she was in, how raw she still was from the assault she'd never dealt with, how many barely-healed wounds she'd had to rip open to do what she'd done that day.

He knew she'd never let her guard down in public, so he quickly located the nearest empty conference room. It was unlocked, so he guided her inside, closing the door behind them. Then he gathered the hurting young woman up in his arms.

Just like it had on the steps of his apartment on that day she'd finally spoken of the assault, his touch crumbled the walls that held back her emotions and she began to cry. He just held her tighter. "It's okay now, it's okay. You - you did an amazing thing today, you were so strong, and I am so proud of you."

She buried her face in his shoulder. "Thank you."

He held her like a child (and damn, she was more than young enough to be his child. She was practically young enough to be his grandchild. When had it happened that he'd gotten a full two generations ahead of the young end of the police force?), stroking her hair. "Your job is done. You can rest now."

She lifted her tear-streaked face from his shirt and locked eyes with him. "I'm not resting until that bastard is behind bars."

xxxxxxxxx

"How do you find?"

The pause between question and answer couldn't have been more than a second or two, but to Amanda, it seemed like an infinite amount of time passed before the foreman replied. "We find the defendant guilty on all counts."

"What?" Blaine exploded. "You can't do that to me! You sluts were asking for it! I only gave you what you were asking for! Tell them!"

"Remove the defendant!" the judge ordered. "Short date for sentencing."

Amanda let out a long breath in relief, but when she turned to Cragen her expression was determined. "It's still not over yet."

xxxxxxxxx

"I understand that one of Mr. Blaine's victims wishes to make a statement to the court?"

"Detective Amanda Rollins, Your Honor." She stood as she identified herself, stepping forward from the gallery. She took a moment to compose herself and then began.

"In 2011, I was working with then-Sergeant Charles Blaine on several cases, including a serial rapist that the media had termed the White Knight. I trusted him, in the way that most cops trust each other, and instead of respecting that trust he took advantage of it. He raped me. There's no question in my mind that he knew _exactly_ what he was doing. I cried and pleaded with him to stop, and he mocked me for it." She turned and faced him. "I just want you to know - you didn't win. You might've put me through the hardest time of my life, but I'm moving on. I have people who will love and support me and I have the rest of my life ahead of me. Your life is as good as over. I just want you to remember that." She turned back to the judge. "Thank you, Your Honor."

"Thank _you_ , Detective. If there are no others wishing to speak, I will impose sentence." He waited a moment to give anyone who might have been missed a chance to speak up and then continued. "Charles Blaine, a jury having found you guilty of nineteen counts of rape in the first degree and nineteen counts of kidnapping in the first degree, I hereby sentence you to nineteen consecutive terms of twenty-five years to life and nineteen consecutive terms of no less than ten and no greater than twenty years, to be served at a facility to be determined by the department of corrections. My only regret is that you will not live long enough to serve out your entire sentence. We're adjourned."

Amanda turned to Cragen, tears shining in her eyes. " _Now_ it's over."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End
> 
> Fear not, there's more to come! Keep an eye on my profile; within the next few days I plan on posting the first chapter of not one but two new stories for this series! One is called Little Girl Lost and runs partially parallel to this story, the other is called Eyes Wide Open and is a direct sequel to Unreasonable Doubt.


End file.
